Game quality

What each result was worth beyond the score. Every play is graded by EPA (expected points added), then adjusted for who it came against: a defence's rating is what it allowed to everyone else that season, so a big day against a bad defence counts for less. Season views include playoff games.

Joe Flacco — 2025

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.108
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.095
Dropbacks
432
Turnover EPA
-68.4
WPA
-1.21
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1CIN 47 -0.104 -0.039 -0.065 -4.9 2 / 0 -7.5 2 -2.4 -0.63 +2.4
2BAL 47 -0.575 -0.569 -0.006 -27.0 1 / 1 -15.6 2 -9.3 -0.32 -3.1
3GB 37 -0.249 -0.248 -0.001 -9.2 1 / 0 -0.3 2 -4.5 -0.21 -3.4
4DET 37 -0.529 -0.539 +0.010 -19.6 2 / 1 -15.9 3 -7.1 -0.19 -15.2
6GB 45 +0.153 +0.145 +0.009 +6.9 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.8 +0.05 +4.7
7PIT 49 +0.315 +0.309 +0.006 +15.5 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.1 +0.63 +1.6
8NYJ 35 -0.017 +0.091 -0.108 -0.6 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.8 -0.26 -8.0
9CHI 51 +0.334 +0.328 +0.006 +17.0 2 / 1 -11.0 3 -8.7 +0.59 +2.8
11PIT 41 -0.234 -0.228 -0.007 -9.6 1 / 0 -9.4 1 -1.5 -0.23 -9.6
12NE 37 -0.362 -0.386 +0.024 -13.4 1 / 0 -8.7 1 -2.8 -0.63 -7.0
16MIA 1 -1.011 -0.978 -0.033 -1.0 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.00 +24.5
17ARI 5 -0.147 -0.084 -0.062 -0.7 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.00 +0.2
Opponent adjustment. A unit's rating for a game is its average over its other games that season, blended with 16 games' worth of prior (league average plus half of last season's gap from it; 24 games for pass defence, which is noisier). Early in a season that leans on last year; by midseason it is mostly this year. Chosen by how well it predicts a held-out game: it cut that error by about a quarter against no shrinkage, and adjusted numbers agree between odd and even weeks more than raw ones do (team EPA margin r 0.52 → 0.55, defence 0.32 → 0.36, QB EPA/dropback 0.47 → 0.49, 2016–2025).
Win expectancy is a logistic fit of wins on EPA margin over 6,036 completed games (it names the winner 86.5% of the time). These describe what happened; one game is not a forecast. Play-by-play credits the quarterback with every sack and dropback, so a bad line shows up in his numbers. Seasons 2016–2026, built 2026-09-14 01:25 UTC, from nflverse. Write-up: backtests/nfl_game_quality/FINDINGS.md.